The present invention relates generally to computers and software code for controlling access to a computer storage device, and, more specifically, to a system and method for re-mapping a logical reference to a first storage device to a second storage device.
In certain computers, especially lower cost computers and network personal computers (NetPC's), a limited number of storage devices are provided. For example, most NetPC's will have a single hard disk but no floppy disk. While this configuration of storage devices will meet most requirements for these computers, some programs have specific, hard-coded references to the absent storage devices. Continuing with the NetPC example, when software is being downloaded to the NetPC during the computer's manufacturing process, often a software download process expects the computer to have a floppy disk. This is mainly due to the fact that the majority of computers do have a floppy disk and therefore hard-coded references to such drives are prevalent throughout the software download process. However, since in the present example no floppy disks exist, the software download process experiences numerous errors.
There are two typical solutions to this problem. One solution is to temporarily install a floppy disk in the NetPC during the software download process, and then later remove the drive. This solution is undesirable, however, because it is very time consuming and requires the existence of an extra floppy disk. The other solution is to modify the code in the software download process. This solution is also undesirable because the code is often used for many different computers, and thereby it is not desirable to change it. In addition, copyright and/or source code availability may prevent the code from being modified.